"Ugliness Does Not Sell" - Raymond Loewy

I have said before that everything I have done, everywhere I have been and everyone I have ever known has molded me into the person I am today. One of the biggest impacts on my life were the four years I spent at Auburn University. I moved to Auburn in the Fall of 2003 and left in May of 2007. Like most 20 year olds, I was confused about what I wanted to do with my life. How do you make a decision that will affect your future when you don't even know who you are? I chose my major the way I have made most decisions in my life, impulsively. I had decided to attend Auburn and major in Interior Architecture because I knew I wanted to design something. In my speech 101 class my first semester in Auburn, we were instructed to write a 200 word speech on our major and why we had decided to choose it. I didn't know too much about interior architecture, so I went to Dudley Hall to get more information on the profession. While I was there I picked up a brochure that said Industrial Design. I started reading it and had decided to change my major after 3 paragraphs. I didn't exactly know what I was getting myself into or what type of job I would look for after college. The only thing I did know was that I would be doing what I have always wanted to do and that is Design. Making decisions impulsively has it's pros and cons. I never really weighed the pros and cons of Industrial Design or asked many questions about the curriculum or the price. I decided that is what I wanted to do and of course my mother said, ok. My first summer in Auburn I had to attend a 9 week Summer Opp program for Industrial Design. This program is designed to 'weed' out the slackers and people who are not serious about the Industrial Design Program. I signed up for summer opp & went to the bookstore and bought the $200 packet of tools that I would need for the classes. A lot of times in my life I make decisions and wonder later, what was I thinking? When I was handed my bag of tools and I realized I had no idea what half of them were called, much less used for, was one of those times.

So like I have said, I didn't know what to expect and I couldn't even draw when I first started the program. Although Summer Opp was like boot camp from hell, I met some of my best friends there and realized I could do more than I thought if I just tried. I remember the first day the instructor told us to get out our T-Square and I had to look at my neighbor to see what they pulled out. That summer I spent hours drafting, drawing in perspective and learning how to render 3d spheres, boxes and cones. I learned how to use an xacto knife to cut through 1" foam core, what a jump drive was and how to save info on it, how to use a band saw and built my own toolbox. Looking back I am sometimes amazed at how many times I wanted to leave Wallace Center and never turn back. I am so thankful I didn't give up, although I failed a hundred times. By the way, later I found out Industrial Design is the Design of Products, like the I Pod.

Over the next three years I designed logos, packaging, ceiling fans, medicine cabinets, robots, electronics and furniture. I learned how to build my own prototypes using a wood shop, metal shop, laser cutter, 3d printer, cnc milling machine and design my products in 3d programs. While most of my friends and neighbors were worried about what bar they would go to or who they would get to write there next paper, my college career was spent in Wallace sketching, painting, sanding, photographing products, waiting on the plotter to print my assignment, defending my ideas and looking for my shop glasses or spray mount. I absolutely fell in love and found my real passion for design at Auburn. Wallace Center (or the Studio as we called it) was my home and designing was my first real love. I struggled everyday to produce a product that I was proud of and prove to my professors and colleagues that it was a valuable concept. I spent hours talking to my friends and my professors about the methods of good design and learning everything I could from them.

The pros about impulse decision making and not thinking them through is that I have done a lot more in my life that I never would have done had I thought about the hard work ahead. There were many days that my best friend Laura and I would leave the studio upset about what someone had said about our concepts or the fact that we put too much bondo on our foam and it collapsed. We would go home and workout or drink wine and complain about how hard the workload was and how we would never make it to graduation. The next morning we would get up and go back to Studio and start all over. Some days I wondered if I would ever sleep again. Looking back I realized that was one of the happiest times in my life and one of the best decisions I ever made Impulsively.